The Times goes for the Tablighis
Muslim group behind ‘mega-mosque’ seeks to convert all Britain -Times Online
The Times continues its hit job on the Deobandis (see earlier entry) with the claim that the Tablighi Jama'at, the "group behind the mega-mosque", is intent on "winning the whole of Britain to Islam" (HT: Islamophobia Watch). Quite apart from the fact that many religious groups seek to convert outsiders to their faith, this group has done little about winning the British public over to Islam in the decades it has been established in this country. It has concentrated mainly on strengthening the religious practice of those already in Islam, and of trying to encourage those they fear are slipping to come back to the mosque. They have been much criticised for this in fact (including by me, on occasions in the past). If intending converts do come across the Jama'at, it is likely to be (as was the case with me) when they happen to visit the mosque at a time when a TJ grouping has been sent to the mosque.
He then alleges that "one leading advocate, Ebrahim Rangooni", has put forward some fanatically isolationist beliefs. I have never heard of this man and was unable to find any trace of Mr Rangooni on the internet (which may not mean that he doesn't exist, but certainly it is unlikely that he is a prominent community leader or has written any books, because if he had, they would be for sale on some website). I could find one Ibrahim Rangooni from Gloucester, asking a question to a fatwa service in Malaysia (and if he was a staunch Deobandi with attitudes like those in question, he would have directed his questions to a site like ask-imam.com rather than to the Islamic Science University of Malaysia, which does not appear to be a Deobandi institution), but nobody else by this name. So who is this Ebrahim Rangooni? As for Muslims living in mostly Muslim areas and supposedly knowing little of the company of outsiders, this is also how it is for a large percentage of the White people in this country, particularly those in small towns and villages. They don't see many who are unlike them either.
He also brings up the irrelevant issue of three known terrorists having been out with the Tablighi Jama'at – another specious argument which is raised any time the TJ are in the news. Where is his proof that the two are in any way connected? I am sure that, in the several years of their lives before they decided to carry out a bombing, they associated with many Muslims, some of them the same way inclined and many more not so. Thousands of men go on Tablighi outings every year; if anything, these meetings are criticised for not being political enough rather than for being a means for radicalising people. If it was, given the few incidents and only two successful attacks which we have seen (taking 7th July and the car bomb attempts earlier this year as single attacks), it is not a very effective one.
Finally, regarding the quote from the founder of the Tablighi Jama'at, Shaikh Muhammad Ilyas, to the effect that "by obeying Islamic laws and following the example of the Prophet Muhammad in their personal lives they would one day 'dominate over non-believers' and become 'masters of everything on this earth'", this belief is not limited to the Tablighi Jama'at (and, I suspect, nor even to Islam). Partly it is a matter of confidence and of believing in the Muslim way of doing things rather than blindly imitating their colonial masters by, for example, wearing clothes unsuited to the Indian climate, but also that by emulating the Prophet (sall' Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam) on account of his being the best of creation, the Muslims will become worthy of the dominance they once had and it will be Divinely granted to them. If one does not believe that there is any value in this, or in God, I do not see why it should be troubling.
